


Non-Canon Snippets of the Songweaver's Trilogy

by Dynamite522



Category: Original Work
Genre: (kidding), Ctabb, Gen, Holla at ur gurl, Original work - Freeform, Probably not going to be canon, Rheia Epilogue?, Rheia ascends mortality, Rheia is tired, Rheia...is drunk. And horny AF, Snippets, These are all separate chapters, Will post specific warnings before each snippet as appropriate
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-17
Updated: 2019-11-30
Packaged: 2021-02-08 05:13:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 17,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21470620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dynamite522/pseuds/Dynamite522
Summary: I've been working on an Original Work Trilogy for about 2 years, and sometimes I get ideas for scenes that absolutely do not work in the timeline of the work.But the ideas are still in my head.So these are those snippets, and will likely be added to as things go. No context, cuz that would take a book and a half to give at this point. >.>
Relationships: Rheia Evryali/Abram 'Raarae' Silver
Comments: 2
Kudos: 1





	1. Not Smut

##  Snippet 1

####  ~~May or May Not be canon

####  Warning: Suicide thoughts mention~~

* * *

Rheia tried to shake herself out of a haze. She was beyond exhausted. After weeks of being unable to sleep, the hallucinations, the phantom feeling of Derrick’s groping hands or the cold chains around her body. 

She was done. Nothing silenced the voices. Nothing banished the ghosts. It was like being eaten alive by a thousand invisible insects, but never dying.

Rheia didn’t even notice the hot spill of tears down her cheeks as she picked up the dagger. If she did it herself, would she finally be able to rest?

There was only the tiniest sting as the tip of the dagger pricked against her chest where she balanced it. Ready for the final plunge.

“I wouldn’t, if I were you.” A familiar voice came from behind her. Rheia shook her head. Now her voices were trying to convince her  _ not _ to do it?

Then a warm hand was resting on her shoulder. Large and rough with callouses.  _ Real. _

“Why are you doing this?” The voice came again. Rich and deep. She knew he towered behind her. Damn long legs and broad shoulders and that indescribable scent that still drew her in, even when she held her breath.

She didn’t need to turn around to know that it was Abram standing behind her. What the Merchants’ Hired Hand was doing in her room, she didn’t know, and didn’t much care.

“Why do you care?” She asked, her voice as dry as autumn leaves. When he didn’t answer, she gave in and said. “I’m tired. I’m so damn tired. I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. I hear ghosts in my mind, feel their hands and chains on my skin. See them in the corner of my eye.” She closed her eyes, and felt the hot tears of exhaustion wash down her cheeks. 

“I can’t keep going like this. I’m not strong enough.”

The words hung in the air for a few thrumming heartbeats before Abram offered his rebuttal. 

“Yes, you are.”

That made her shift the dagger away from her self, turning around in a fury. Her patience had been nonexistent for weeks.

“What the fuck do  **you** know about my strength?” She demanded, eyes bright with fury while the dark circles beneath them were deep bruises of her ongoing fatigue.

Rheia had to look up, again, to see his face. To look into the ash gray eyes that were so striking against his golden brown skin. Even for a human, he was tall. Her head was solidly at his chest-height, making him slightly more than six feet tall. Then there was his strong, lean muscled build that was as lethal as the blade he kept at his hip. Hips that should have her legs wrapped around them…  _ No! _ She admonished herself.  _ Focus! _

  
She had to blink, snapping herself back to the source of her temper. Abram was watching her face, his expression giving nothing away if her momentary thoughts had shown through.

Rheia expected him to laugh, to joke, to make light of the struggle she’d been fighting against ever since leaving Auberhaven.

“I’ve seen some terrible things in my time. People tortured, people killed. Screaming with pain as their minds and bodies are broken. With most, there comes a point. They go silent, accepting the horror being done. Or they go somewhere in their minds where the pain can’t touch them.”   
  
He reached forward, and gently took the dagger from her hands.   
“I saw you go through the same, but Rheia… You never stopped screaming.”

Abram turned to put the dagger back on the table, where it’d been intended as a letter opener. Turning back, he watched the defeated expression cross Rheia’s face.

“After all this. Don’t go silent now.”

The words struck something in Rheia’s heart. The thread of defiance that had been fighting against the whispers and the visions and the ghosts. Screaming not to give in.

But she was so,  _ so _ tired. She couldn’t find the strength to fight any longer. 

With tears dripping Rheia looked up at Abram, and voiced her dearest wish at that moment.

“I just want to sleep. Will you help me?”

When Abram opened his mouth, the ice-cold voice in her mind echoed his words.

“I will help you.”

At the sound of those words, the exhaustion that had dogged Rheia’s every step, that had burned in her scars, finally took over.    
  
Sweet oblivion swept her up, or was that Abram? She lost all track of her body as she was finally.  _ Finally _ . Able to sleep.


	2. Not Smut? FTB??

## ~~Snippet 2

#### May or may not be canon: Epilogue?~~

* * *

It had been months since Rheia left the Dread Fields, found a balance in herself she never expected to find.

One would think that all would be normal, wouldn't you?

True, her nightmares were fewer and farther between now, but they still happened. Not the plague they had been, but still an occurrence. She had bad days, and great weeks. It was a new normal.

When she woke up in the middle of the night, trembling with the feel of cold iron remembered on her skin. She knew she didn't *_ need _* to call for anyone. She could go back to sleep, and she'd be fine the next morning. A little tired. A little achy. But fine.

Rheia got up, and freshened herself. Washing the fear-sweat off her face, her neck. Opened the window of her wagon to let in the clean night air. Pulling her hand back, she admired the gold paint she’d used on her nails. 

With some deliberation, she picked up a silver coin from her purse. Putting it down on the worktable, Rheia traced the sign of the Mercenary around it.

"I call you, Kyarae, with an offer." She said the ritual prayer. Normally, one would continue with the offer, but she didn’t feel the need for that.

As the night wind stirred through the window, she felt that magnetic draw. Her mouth watered, her fingers ached. It was like getting only the drop of sweet ale on her tongue before pouring out a full glass.

She grinned as the wagon's locked door opened to show the tall, golden skinned man with ash-grey eyes and ink black hair. Frowning at the use of his ‘Pretentious Show-Pony name’. 

“Well?” He asked, his eyes cool, but with a light of interest that warmed her chilled skin from her neck all the way down to her toes. “What is your offer?”

Rheia held out a hand to him, and smiled. “Be with me tonight?”

She didn’t need anyone to banish her night terrors. To soothe away the memories. She could do that all herself quite well. 

Abram looked at her, and then grinned, and stepped forward until he could tip her head back for a kiss. The chill in her bones evaporated into heated excitement. The magnetic draw was one thing. She knew now that it was power calling to power. This, however, the shiver of skin against skin as hands slipped under clothes to caress and stroke. Gold-painted nails dug into muscled shoulders as she was lifted from her feet, wrapping her legs around his hips as they shifted through the cramped space to her recently vacated cot. _ This _was indulgence.

In the morning, Rheia woke alone. Rested and languid, the window closed and the wagon warm with the remembered heat of two bodies instead of one. 

One would almost think it a dream. As she rose to dress and prepare for the day, she noted that the silver coin had disappeared from the workshelf, and hummed a jaunty tune softly to herself.

Rheia was a Tomarbin. A traveller, a merchant, and a bard. She’d sampled Death, chose life, and helped restore a balance she hadn’t known was in danger. 

All in all, she could tend to herself as well as anyone. 

It was her choice if, every now and then, she wanted to partake of a little...indulgence.


	3. Gore/Violence Warning

##  ~~Snippet 3

####  Possible scene for 3rd book?

####  Warning, starts out gore-y. Violence~~

* * *

Rheia felt the knife bite into her stomach, drag painfully up to just beneath her breasts. She couldn’t help the cry that ripped from her throat. No matter how much pain she experienced, she never got used to it. The woman who held the knife looked down at her, a mixture of disgust and excitement on her face as she left the dagger buried just below Rheia’s chest. If she had any moisture left in her mouth, she would have turned her head to spit on the woman’s fine cloth shoes.

This was the part of the ritual they needed her for. That needed all the five ‘keys’ for. One oracle for each of the Old Gods. 

She heard the screams of the others around the room with her, smelled the hot scent of blood quickly overtaking the dry desert air. Her eyes scanned around the room as much as she could. The faces were not entirely familiar. Two women, counting the one that had dug the knife into her stomach, and one man joined Morgan and… Abram.

Her heart still felt like it had been stabbed by an ice-cold dagger of betrayal when she looked at him. Though he stood towards the back of the circular room, no dagger in hand. She didn’t know if he wasn’t allowed to participate in the ritual or just refused to. His expression gave nothing away, even as his cool grey eyes met her furious molten gold ones.

Just as the wounds started, they began to heal, stopping where the dagger was still left stabbed into her chest. She was a little faster than the others, feeling the trigger of magic straight from the Mother Serpent. Keeping her body alive.

But there was something else. The others weren’t healing fast enough. Too much blood in the air. Rheia’s heart thundered in panic. If they died here, there would be no option to come back.

This was the heart of the Dread Fields. The living world equivalent of the Hall of Judgement. If a soul crossed to the Dead Lands here, there would be no returning. Not for her. Not for anyone.

Rheia’s ears strained to hear the breathing and heartbeats of the other keys. The other poor souls that had walked her same tortured path and ended up with their blood spilled in the sand.

Her hearing sharpened, and she felt the cold burn of her scars as the power she associated with the icy voice in her mind came into play.

The other heartbeats were fading. Stuttering out like a candle’s flame. The fogborne woman whose skin was nearly transparent, spilling silver blood onto the sand. Her prayers were to die, to meet the Deep Lord. 

As much as Rheia understood the sentiment, it infuriated her. 

These assholes weren’t getting another soul sent on before their time. Not now, and  _ never  _ again.

For the first time since she had tasted each of the powers, Shadow’s cold burn and Mother Serpent’s overwhelming flood. She reached for them. For  **both** of them.

Her skin sealed instantly, the dagger clattering to the floor as it was pushed out of the wound. Rheia felt her body flooding with an energy she had never felt before. It didn’t burn, or not as much as she expected it. Nor did it feel as cold as she’d felt before.

The ground beneath her trembled with the force of her breathing.

The chains were still around her wrists and ankles, binding her to the post on the ground where they spilled her blood into the circle. 

Morgan was in the center, revelling in a contact that shouldn’t be possible.

This time Rheia heard the cold voice  _ not _ inside her head. 

**“As you wish, human.”**

She didn’t have time to focus on that yet. She needed to get the damn chains off.    
  
No sooner than she thought it, the chains disintegrated, crumbling away into dust before her eyes.

Rheia sat up, and laughed. She felt… powerful. Whole.  _ This must be what it feels like to be a Gorgon.  _ She thought, delighted. 

Standing up, she focused on the other keys. Her voice thundered with laughter, echoed with screams.   
  
“We don’t die today, Cousins.” She called out. Again, no sooner than the thought crossed her mind, things began to change. Her hair whirled around her head like a nest of living serpents. Each with a glowing gold eye and a pitch dark one, a purple so deep it was nearly black.

The other keys couldn’t die here. She wouldn’t let it happen. There had been too many lives lost in this private crusade, and she was stopping it here.

The ground trembled again, and Rheia saw Morgan… well, she would have said ‘glow’, but that wasn’t quite accurate. It was the antithesis of light. An aura of gloom and shadow that was no less powerful than a blinding light. The ground around him began to ripple and roil. Sprouting flowers that died off within instants, crystals that shattered, fire, ash. Chaos.

The patch of chaos under Morgan began to spread, and Rheia only had two thoughts. Keep the other keys alive. Keep  _ that _ from getting too far.

Though she had no idea how she would accomplish either, the ideas themselves seemed to be enough. Snakes the same color of her hair poured out from her sleeves and the hem of her skirt, burrowing into the ground beneath her. 

All around the edge of the carved stone circle, the ground cracked. A dozen serpents the same deep brown as her hair, each with a glowing gold eye and a pitch dark purple one, burst out of the ground. Four sank fangs that matched their eyes into the other prisoners. Rheia sent her strength to them, taking the burden of the connection to their Gods onto herself. 

The first was a human in the tattered remains of a Qe’anite’s uniform, the followers of the Smith. Or, as she thought the comparison was more apt. Of Life’s Flame. As she took on their connection, her skin felt like it was roasting alive. Burning, growing, consuming. 

Next, the Kaditean, follower of the Bard. Cloud Cutter’s favorite of the Human Gods. Her lungs expanded, almost bursting with too much air. Rheia forced her lungs to work, to keep the connection going. 

Then the Spiderling. Rheia’s heart went out to the male who was made for the dark caverns and crevices of the Mountains. His eyes tight shut against the excruciating light. Her limbs felt stiff and heavy, made of stone, seeing the world through a thousand tiny eyes.

Last was the Fogborne, whose silver blood reminded Rheia of the soul streams in the Dead Lands. As the snake sank its light and dark fangs into the woman, Rheia felt flooded. Her veins filled with ice, her throat choking for an instant on water that tasted of the sea, of the swampy marshes and cold crystal clear lakes.

All the ties flooded into her, and even with the balance she’d found between the Serpent’s power and the Shadow’s, she felt overwhelmed. Falling to her knees, she kept her focus on keeping herself and the others alive. The other snakes, who had not bound the other prisoners to her life force, turned to hold onto each other’s tails. Forming a ring outside the stone circle. The ties Rheia had taken onto herself overflowed into the ring of serpents. As each tie shifted from the other prisoners to herself, the ring of serpents took on an extra aura. 

Scarlet and amber, for Life’s Fire. Cool silvery white for Cloud Cutter. Deep earthen brown and orange for the Mountain King. Deep, chilling blue for the Deep Lord.

It was agonizing. It was thrilling. Even when she had wandered through the Dead Lands, she had never seen the world as she did now.

Not as a traveler, a bard, a single pair of eyes looking up at the world from the ground.    
  
She saw it from the eyes of the Gods. The connections between the creatures, the large spaces of the world that moved with creations she had never seen before.   
  
She saw the threads of power that shaped their origin. 

Rheia laughed, her voice ringing with the clear sound of bells in the wind, crackled with the rage of the world’s inner inferno, boomed with the crack of stone, roared like a storm at sea.

Focusing back on the circle around herself, she saw herself, kneeling on the ground. Hair a mass of curling serpents, all with gold and black eyes. 

In the center of the circle, Morgan was wrestling with his own power, in the same expression of agony and glee that she felt within herself.

There was only one connection going to Morgan now, and it was as black and roiling as tar. As it solidified, Morgan cackled with a voice as cold as the stars. 

“Now the powers of Reality, of Life and Death will be at my whim!” He crowed.

To her surprise and Morgan’s, Abram stepped forward, the sword she never saw leave his hip was finally drawn. Around Abram, there were no ties, as she saw with herself and the other keys. There was only an aura. Gold, scarlet, silver, brown, blue. All five Gods represented in that ebbing, flowing shield of light around him. 

“I think not.” He said, his voice the same cool tone as he had used when turning her into Morgan’s hands. 

The madman turned, and the question burst out in surprise. 

“What are you doing!?”

Setting his feet in a fighting stance, Abram gave one simple reply. 

“I’m doing my Gods Damned job.”


	4. the Smut Begins

##  ~~Snippet 4

####  Probably not going to be canon, just need to try writing something steamy.

####  VERY STEAMY. WARNING. SMUT AHEAD.~~  


* * *

Rheia stretched, her flagon of grog, weakened with ale this time, dangerously close to tipping over on herself as she did so.

Abram reached over and rescued it from her less-than-steady grasp.

It wasn’t fair, truly. She was a Tomarbin, a descendant of the Gorgon Euryale. A being who was of the second creations ever made by the Mother Serpent.

_ He _ was human. He  _ shouldn’t _ be able to hold his liquor better than her, damn it!

“Hey, givit back.” She said, her words slurred slightly. Another few flagons, and she might forget how to speak Common altogether. Already, her musical accent was thicker than an overcooked stew.

“I’ll give it back when you settle down, or you’ll spill it all over yourself.” Abram said, his lanky build stretched out on the couch next to her.    
  
Hiring the house for the week had been a needless expense, she’d told him. Ridiculously overpriced. She had a perfectly good wagon, and the caravansaries had all the accommodations they needed. 

An obvious accommodation, he’d pointed out to her. Where any fool with a quarter of the brains the Gods gave them would immediately look for any stray Tomarbin wanted for the murder of a Noble’s son.

So, Abram had used  _ her _ coin to rent the house for them to use as a ‘base of operations’. Rheia thought it was ridiculous, but couldn’t deny that the furnishings were extremely comfortable.   
  
Or maybe that was the grog talking.

Or the hormones. 

Over the last few days, Rheia had discovered that whatever the ‘scent’ that made Abram a ridiculously attractive specimen was not, in fact, a scent at all. Nor was it a charm, spell, or any specific magic that she could determine. 

She couldn’t be exactly certain, but she thought it only affected her. To be certain, she hadn’t seen any  _ others _ lose half their minds while in his presence. 

Rheia was a Bard, an actress and songstress. A merchant and barterer of the highest rank. She  _ knew _ when someone was trying to hide their thoughts. 

Except Abram. Those cool ash grey eyes could hide multitudes, and she’d still be lost in the winter ocean shade of them. 

Which was down right demeaning, now that she thought of it. Rheia had dozens of liaisons. Men, the odd woman here and there. Like the farm girl from Aquarine. Sweet girl, with gorgeous blue eyes like a midnight summer sky on a moonless night.

But she wasn’t dealing with any of  _ them _ . She was dealing with  _ Abram _ . The man had every single one of her numbers. Golden tan skin stretched tight over chiseled features. Broad shoulders she could just see digging her nails into, a build that tapered down and down to hips that seemed made for her legs to wrap around.

Abram cleared his throat, and handed her drink back to her. Rheia snapped out of her reverie, realizing that she had been staring at him for a solid minute or two, her gaze sliding slowly down until it snagged on his waist. 

How they got to be all but curled up on the couch together was a bit hazy, but Rheia did recall saying something about being chilly in the drafty house, and Abram mentioning that the couch, which was set closest to the hearth and its crackling fire, was much warmer.

If he hadn’t offered that information, she likely still would have been in the armchair a few feet away.

Like hell, she would be. Keeping a distance from the Chaperone… mercenary? Did he say something about being a mercenary, or was that just her active imagination? Either way, keeping her distance from the man was like asking a flower not to bloom. Or a wolf not to hunt. It just wasn’t going to happen. 

Being next to Abram was like standing next to a waterfall. Mesmerizing, awe-inspiring, and weirdly comforting. Though for full accuracy, it would be a waterfall that smelled like fresh-cut melon, spiced rum, and melted gold. With a radiating warmth of sun-soaked fur.

If Rheia were a cat, he’d be catweed. Concentrated, and poured into a mold that warned of a cold, calculating potential for violence. 

“S’not fair y’know.” Rheia said, sliding down the arm of the couch so that it cradled her head. Letting her look up at Abram without having to actually support herself at all.

“What’s not fair?” He asked, glancing down at her. He was still sitting straight on the couch. Apparently hardly affected by the ale-watered grog.    
  
Well, he hadn’t been affected by straight grog either, the bastard. 

“You. With yer…” Rheia gestured vaguely to his entire lanky form. “Gorgeous eyes. And yer ridiculous alcohol tolerance. And that’s coming from  _ me! _ ” She said, indignant. “I out-drank five sailors. At the same time. And yet. Here you are, five drinks in with me. And it’s like it does nuthin! That’s not fair.”

Her legs were stretched over his lap, having taken up the entire rest of the couch, despite being more than half a foot shorter than him.

“And then ye add those damn cheekbones. Godsdamnitall. Sharp as daggers and twice as lethal.” She was slurring some of her sentences together, but she didn’t care.

Was that a flush rising up his neck, or was it just the firelight?   
  


“I think you’re drunk.” He said, and started to reach for her flagon to take it away from her again. Rheia swatted his hand away long enough for her to down it in three swift gulps. 

“Naw, just…” She fumbled with the cup and nearly dropped it. “Ok, maybe a lil’ drunk.” She admitted, “But I’m still thinking clear enough, and it don’t change the facts. You sit there with yer ridiculous tolerance. If I couldn’t smell the grog from here, I’d say ye’were cheating me. And yer bitable ass, and your stupid broad shoulders. Yer temptation on a razor’s edge.”

Abram had been smiling into his cup, but choked on a laugh as she finished her thought. 

“Am I, now?” He asked, his voice breaking on another laugh as he struggled to keep a straight face. 

“Abslututely.” Rheia said, then frowned as she thought she said the word wrong, but couldn’t figure out exactly how.

“Aneeway.” She said, her accent swerved her pronunciation all over the place now. “How am I supposed to keep from gettin’rested when yer there being all tempting and shit? Issnot fair!”

Now Abram was laughing, and Rheia’s half-joking temper was peaking more towards the real thing. 

“You could try closing your eyes?” He suggested, chuckling into his glass. Rheia sat up, pale gold-toned skin flushed with drink and temper. Since her legs had been sprawled over his lap, this now put her more or less  _ sitting _ in his lap.

“You think a girl as smart as me wouldn’t have tried that? You smell too damn sexy, too.”

The pale yellow dress she’d donned for the second day of the Summer Festival was hiked up on her thighs now, leaving bare skin on either side of his black-cotton clad legs.

He’d been managing most of the conversation by glancing over at her, but keeping himself facing the fire. 

When she’d sat up, she’d shifted slightly to keep herself looking directly at him. Now her back was to the fire, and she was straddling his hips. It did give the lovely advantage of being able to push up slightly so that her eyes were more on a level with his. 

With their faces so close together, she could all but taste the grog-and-ale mixture on his breath, along with the mint from the tea she’d fixed for them earlier with dinner.

“You know what’s not fair?” He asked, a new light coming into his eyes. Maybe the grog/ale mix  _ was _ affecting him.

Rheia tilted her head in confusion. “What?”

He carefully set his glass down, then in a blur, he grabbed her shoulders and twisted them both around so she was back to laying on the couch.    
  
With one major change...improvement? Now Abram was hovering over her, caging her in with that delicious scent, hormone, whatever the fuck it was swamping her senses.

“What’s not fair is being hired by a woman, which puts her outside of proper bounds. Even worse, is feeling a pull. An irrefutable, knife-edge  _ need _ for that woman. Like every secret of the universe is locked behind her lips.”   
  


His own lips hovered over hers as he spoke, a hair’s breadth away. The buzz of alcohol in her veins had changed to an entirely different buzz altogether. One that had heat pooling low in her belly and muscles going weak with want.

“And while that knife-edge want is constantly one wrong move from digging straight into my soul, I have to make sure she stays safe. Stays hidden. While she gives a siren song to draw in every eye in the Gods Damned City.”

Rheia’s eyes had gone wide, pupils nearly blacking out the gold-brown irises.

“Sounds like there’s a common solution to both of our problems.” She said, either the alcohol had been burned from her system by the sheer magnetic attraction that was thudding through her veins with every frantic beat of her heart, or…well, nothing else really came to mind to answer her sudden clarity of speech. 

Abram settled more of his weight on the couch, and she parted her legs slightly so that they caged each other, in one form or another.

“Really?” He breathed out the question, tilting his head so she could feel his lips at the corner of her mouth. 

Temptation nothing, he was pure sin drenched in summer sweetness and metallic warning.

“You said being hired put this outside of proper bounds.” Rheia pointed out. It was amazing how one’s mental faculties could sharpen when things were pointing to answering what every nerve, instinct, and hormone was screaming for her to claim. “So the answer’s simple. Fuck propriety.”

Abram snorted out a short laugh, the vibration rumbling through his chest, sending ripples of anticipation through her. 

“Fuck propriety.” He agreed, and crushed his mouth to hers.

‘Oh, good Goddesses  _ Yes.’ _ Was all that flashed through Rheia’s mind for the brief instant that she  _ could _ still think. She drank him in like a dying man at an oasis. Calloused hands that were roughened by hundreds of hours handling a blade slid from her thighs, pushing her dress with them until they were slipping inside to cup her breast.

Her legs were hooked around his waist, pulling him to her as her hands smoothed from shoulders to his hair, back down to rake painted nails down his back.

He shivered, then started kissing a trail down her jaw to her neck.

_ Oh, Gods. _ The words flashed through her mind as she tilted her chin, giving a wordless, almost mindless invitation. 

More kisses down her neck before his teeth closed over the soft flesh between neck and shoulder. Rheia bucked beneath him, as pleasure like cat’s claws scored through her insides so sharp it was almost painful.

His hand over her breast was a concert in conflicting sensations. Rough calluses, soft edges. Gentle caresses and teasing pinches.

Rheia arched against him, showing more strength than he was expecting.

  
They rolled together, off the couch where Abram landed on his back on the floor. He coughed out a curse as Rheia giggled. On top again, and still straddling hips, and a bulge she was determined to become  _ much _ better acquainted with very shortly, Rheia took the opportunity to shed the pale yellow dress. Thankfully it was a simple design, a single tie at her neck loosened the bodice enough that it easily slid over her head. 

Tossing it aside, she leaned over him. Grey eyes like shards of flint and steel. Deadly, sharp, and sparking a fire that urged an answering blaze in her.

He paused for a moment, appreciating the picture that she made above him. Gold skin, warm firelight, wild mahogany curls that did nothing to hide the molten gold that now overtook the brown in her eyes.

Rheia shifted a little, ‘accidentally’ grinding against the bulge she’d noticed earlier to make him groan while she tugged at the hem of his shirt. 

“Your turn.” She said. The grog and ale might have tipped the scales tonight, but she was still in control of herself.    
  
There would be no regrets about this come morning. 

Abram curled forward, claiming another heated kiss until he had to pull back to pull his shirt over his head.

Rheia all but purred as he tossed his shirt to join her dress somewhere outside the warm glow of the firelight. His lean build and loose shirts had hidden the muscle underneath. Toned, firm, but not without enough give that she couldn’t dig in her fingers just a little.

There were scars, as she had half-expected. A man didn’t make his living by the blade without earning a mark...or ten.

There was a nasty looking one that peaked from below the waistband of his slacks, spreading up his side. Rheia traced her fingers over it, then over the rest of the scars that she could see. Slices, stab wounds. Burns? She circled one that was more spotted...almost bubbly, lightly with her nail.

While she did this, Abram watched her, ash grey eyes reflecting the firelight so they looked like a multitude of metals all melted together.

Rheia leaned forwards, and claimed  _ his _ lips in a kiss this time. She was no passive damsel. She was there to give pleasure as much as take it.

His arms banded around her, a jungle’s furnace amid the colder northern cities. She felt his muscles tense, but she pulled away before he could flip them over again.

Planting a light kiss on his stubbled chin, she whispered “Not yet.”

Every muscle was strung tight, and she relished every quake and quiver she caused as she kissed and stroked her way from his neck, down the scarred plains of his chest, and down further still. 

“We’re not even yet.” She said, hooking her fingers in the waistband of his slacks. “Tomarbins are all about fair trade, you know.”

Whether he merely chose not to say anything, or was having a sudden difficulty in swallowing his tongue, Abram didn’t make more than a strangled half-moan as Rheia tugged the slacks and undershorts down.

His member sprang forward, the head already glistening in the low light. Rheia licked her lips, and stroked a hand over it before she continued with her undressing.

His slacks flew through the dark living room to join the rest of their clothing. Lost somewhere in the darkness to be rediscovered tomorrow.

It wasn’t her concern at the moment.

This was something she had missed. The thrilling power of seduction, made all the sweeter by the heady aura that had been drawing her in for weeks.

Closing her lips over the head, Rheia took a moment to swirl her tongue around. She didn’t always indulge in such things, but she did occasionally like to prove that there was more than one reason she could be called a silver-tongued devil. 

Abram’s hiss of breath and clenched hand fisting into her hair was her reward, tugging at her locks as she bobbed up and down his length. If her mouth wasn’t currently busy, she would have smiled. Instead, she contented herself with a hum of amusement. Which brought another hissed curse from Abram’s lips as corded muscles twitched beneath her fingers, where she braced herself for balance.

Then he was tugging at her hair more urgently, pulling her up from her entertainment.

“I’m not going to be finished so easily as that.” He growled into her ear as he flipped them again. Her lips were lightly swollen from her work moments ago, and he traced his thumb along her bottom lip as she pouted it slightly. 

His other hand, meanwhile, stroked from her breast, down her hip, and then over to where he nudged her legs further apart. 

As she spread them, the wandering hand stroked up the inside of her thigh, brushing lightly over the scar there, before finding her center. 

The heat that had been pooling in her belly had made her slick and ready. Bucking against his hand as he slid one finger inside, finding the bundle of nerves above her entrance with his thumb. 

Rheia reached up, and locked her hands behind his neck to bring his mouth back to hers. Muffling her own moans into his mouth as he worked his fingers inside her.

The mounting pleasure was clawing its way up to its peak, and she shuddered through it, having to break away from his lips to gasp as the air suddenly became too thick in her lungs.

Already dewed with sweat, glowing in the firelight, Abram shifted. When he pulled his hand away, Rheia whimpered in reaction. She wasn’t ready for it to end.

  
  


It turned out that she needn’t fear, though, as Abram was only beginning. Using both hands, he spread her legs farther, lifting her hips so he could position himself just so.

As his length slid inside her, she locked her legs around his hips again, urging him to move.

He did not disappoint. 

Both of them moving in a frantic tandem, the sound of flesh against flesh and their own harsh breathing the only accompaniment to the crackle of the fire.

Again and again, that mounting pleasure rose until she couldn’t contain herself to muffled moans.

On the final peak of pleasure, so impossibly high that Rheia thought the world might shatter around them, her moans turned into a scream that buzzed with unintentional power. The pleasure flooding her nerves, her mind, echoed in the sound. Even if Abram hadn’t been so close behind her, that sudden shock of pleasure would have been enough to have him following her over the edge, ruining the passionate rhythm as his hips stuttered through his own climax.

In the quiet aftermath, neither heard the low-burning fire as they fought to catch their breath. Their own pulses echoing the last peak of pleasure through their systems.

As her heart rate finally started to calm, Rheia tapped a finger on a dozing Abram’s shoulder.

He grunted in response, shifting slightly to ensure he wasn’t crushing her beneath him.

“I’d better not be charged for this.” Rheia commented dryly.

It took Abram a solid three beats of silence to process her words before he snorted out a laugh. Reaching up, he snagged the throw blanket from the couch to pull it over the both of them.

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” He said, and laid his head in the crook of her shoulder. 

Rheia snuggled into the embrace and let herself drift off as well.

Fuck propreity, indeed.


	5. Smut Continues

##  Snippet 5

####  Continuation of 4th Snippet. Still May or May Not be Canon

####  More Smut. Holy jeebus, these two. >.>

* * *

When the morning chatter of bakers and merchants outside beat in Rheia’s head as if someone were trying to use an overripe gord as a drum, she desperately tried to block the offending noise by burying her face in the firm slant of a muscled shoulder.

The aura of temptation still wafted around her, like floating in the epicenter of a storm. It made her feel like it would be more dangerous to leave than to stay. 

When her attempts to block the noise proved fruitless, she raised her head slightly to gauge her surroundings. Calling on a thread of magic, she silenced the world around her in a neat bubble. 

Sighing in relief, she returned to her original position, nuzzling her face against the bare neck and shoulder of, as she had put it, ‘Sin drenched in summer sweetness’.

Abram was already awake, damn him, and glancing around at the silenced area. The movements jostled her tender head, and she growled an incomprehensible objection.

As was her habit, Rheia had shifted during her sleep, and had tangled her limbs around Abram’s like a snake coiled around a branch.

“You know, you can’t keep doing this.” Abram murmured softly, but even that noise was too much. 

“Shhhhh.” Rheia hushed, managing to extract one hand from under the throw to blindly press a finger to Abram’s lips. “No talking. M’sleeping.”

Until, ideally, her head stopped feeling like she’d been trying to hammer down a nail with a pumpkin.

Abram was fairly certain he’d been on top when they went to sleep. How they had managed to shift so that she was on top of him, and curled like a vine around an oak, was beyond him.

When he tried to move again, Rheia only tightened her grip, vicing her legs around his. He sighed.    
  
“We need to get up.”

Rheia kept her face hidden in the crook of his shoulder. “Lies.”

She might have said more on the point, but she was currently trying to pretend that the rest of the world did not exist. If it didn’t exist, it couldn’t force her to move before she was recovered from the grog.

Gently, and with no small amount of curses from his bed companion, Abram extracted himself from the blanket.

In his absence, Rheia only thought to pull the throw over her head, all the better to block out light as well as sound.

Outside her bubble of silence, Abram was free to fetch his clothes, and start a kettle of water heating on the stove. The rented house had a fairly well-stocked kitchen. With the pots and pans needed, if not the food itself.

Rheia had brought in a bag of what she considered her ‘bare essentials’, which Abram decided was roughly half of her wagon’s contents. Bags of trail rations, jars of herbs and teas, jewelry, paints and dyes for her hair and face all littered the kitchen table. To say nothing of the small chest that he’d hauled into one of the side rooms the day before.

They’d also had some light bit of groceries sent over. Ordered by Abram, as Rheia was to keep a low profile for a few days.

While waiting for the water to heat, Abram made himself useful. Taking some of the fresh eggs and a few of the herbs that Rheia had brought, he soon had what some might call a ‘bachelor’s breakfast’ nearly half done by the time the kettle started to whistle.

He didn’t know what tea or medicine Rheia had taken before to cure her hangover, so he studied the different jars and packets until he found a wax-sealed jar, pained with a red and gold flower on its front. As it was the only one that had gained extra decoration, he slid a fingernail around the edge of the seal to break it. The contents of the jar looked like another blend of tea, but there was an odd scent to it. A dull coppery tang that had his interest peaked.

The scent only grew stronger when he dumped a scoop or two into a mug and poured hot water over it.

The regular tea blends were far more straight-forward. Placed in jars that had been labeled clearly with their contents and specific blend. Abram chose a smokey smelling blend that held just the faintest whiff of a bite of citrus.

The smell of the eggs, toasted bread, and brewing tea seemed to accomplish the impossible. A very disheveled looking Rheia shuffled into the kitchen. The throw blanket tied around her in a make-shift dress. 

“Didn’t find your clothes?” He asked, but she didn’t answer. She went straight for the mugs he’d placed on the table. He wasn’t even sure her eyes were open, guided purely by the scent of what she knew would be her relief.

Picking up the mug of “medicine” first, she made a face of bitter anticipation before she downed the contents. He didn’t even have time to warn her the water was still close to scalding.

Rheia coughed slightly, then shook her head. Apparently not having noticed or cared about the temperature of the medicinal tea. Smacking her lips as if trying to rid herself of the taste, she then picked up the mug of tea. This, too, she took a long drink of. Disregarding the scalding heat of the water.

All this, Abram noted with amusement, with her eyes completely closed.

They snapped open now, though, and those gold-brown eyes locked on his across the table.

“You’re entirely unfair.” She accused, as if she hadn’t heard a word he’d said before. Which was more than likely, considering the bubble of silence she’d conjured while still half-asleep.

Abram turned his attention to dividing the food between two plates.    
  
“How’s that now?” He asked. 

Rheia pulled out a stool far enough that she could climb onto it to sit.

“First, you can hold your liquor better than me. Which, I’ll have you know, has been  _ impossible _ for anyone outside the caravans.” 

She took another sip of tea, then grimaced. “Is there honey?” When he passed her the small pot, she dumped three large spoonfuls into her mug before stirring it in. Taking another testing sip, she added one last half-spoonful before she was satisfied.

“Then,” She continued, “There was…” She broke off, blushing slightly as the memory of the night before came clearly into her mind. “ _ That _ excitement.”

He hid a grin behind his own mug as she finished her thought. “And now you’re up and about with nary a care for the drink last night. I call bullshit. There’s no way a human can withstand all that. TWICE, and be unaffected the next day.”

Her stool was placed just between the kitchen table and the back wall, so when he brought over her food, she had to hop off her stool to take a step back. The kitchen was well stocked, not well spaced.

Having placed the plates of food down on the table, Abram turned to her, and she caught a glimpse of that new light in his eyes. A light that matched his look last night. 

Still it caught her by surprise when he backed her into the corner, bracing his arms on either side of her to cage her in. 

“Who says I’m unaffected?” He asked, voice low as he bent his head close to her ear. “Maybe ‘ _ That excitement _ ’ is like a drug, and I’m still riding the high.”

Rheia’s own eyes had gone wide and dark, as if drugged herself. Her system had been slow to start before the medicine and the tea, and now it was roaring to life. 

“Well, at least  _ something _ breaks through that ridiculous tolerance of yours.” She breathed, tipping her head back as much as she could.

His lips curved as they ghosted over hers. “That temptation goes both ways. Is that an even enough trade for you?”   
  


Ooh, he was throwing her own words back at her, and this time she had all her memories of the night before to know it. Perhaps it was her life as a bard, but the sparring of wits was just as tantalizing to her as the caress of flesh.

“Maybe.” She said, and rose on her toes, unable to resist temptation. He half picked her up, bracing her against the wall so he could plunder her mouth without stooping. 

For once in Rheia’s life, she didn’t have the mental capacity to internally gripe about the height difference.

Her body was thrumming with need before he sank his teeth into the soft flesh between shoulder and neck. It was inches away from her scar, but she didn’t care. Squirming between him and the wall, Rheia gasped out what might have been a prayer or a curse.

“Dac’ner tuas. _ ” Don’t tease.  _ She panted out the words, slipping into her native tongue instead of common. 

His thigh was between her legs, partially to help keep her braced against the wall, but also adding a delicious friction. He ground his thigh harder into her, making her whimper.

“Man? An’Tuasen?”  _ Me? A tease? _ He answered. “Nexim.”  _ Never. _

Rheia barely registered that he answered in her own tongue, but the sound of his voice using her native tongue to murmur to her was yet another draft of intoxication over her raging system.

His hands had been busy while their lips had battled for who could drink deeper of the other. The tied blanket that had been her make-shift dress fell away, and her skin tightened in reaction to the sudden chill.

She slid down the wall as he lowered, still keeping pinned against it, her legs parted to either side as he shifted one leg over his shoulder.

“Wan ebarner equame yin.”  _ We’re not even yet. _ He breathed the words over her stomach as he went still lower.

The noise she made when his tongue flicked over her core was nothing human. At best, it might have come from some kind of cat, somewhere between a moan and a whine.

He took his time, and she couldn’t decide if it was a blessing or the harshest torture. His breath against her skin, sending shivers of sensation through her body before he even touched her, the calm before the storm. Then came his tongue, his lips, his teeth. Taking her to that edge of completion before easing back down.

“Dac’ner tuas!” She was nearly begging, but even now her pride wouldn't allow for that.

He turned his head just enough to place a light nip on her thigh, making her yelp and jerk against him.

“Man calib’fitu dac’woa fan dowin ta shudesk.”  _ I could do this from dawn until dusk _ . 

Rheia was losing her Gods damned mind. She was so close,  _ so close _ , and to top it off, he was out-talking a bard.

Finding some scrap of sanity to cling to, Rheia answered as coherently as she could.

“Man’fitu apeatur ta fivara. Ecinos’ioa!”  _ I’ll return the favor. Finish it!  _ The last words came out almost on a sob. 

Never let it be said that Abram ever disobeyed a direct order. Sliding a finger inside her to accompany his tongue and teeth in a fresh assault on her system.

Rheia was sure that she’d shake apart, the whimpers breaking into a scream as she finally was sent over the edge of pleasure to crash through the next peak immediately after that.

It was an eternity, and it was mere moments, before Abram lowered Rheia enough that her toes could touch the floor again. Her legs all but vibrating in the effort to brace against her weight.  


She continued to lean against the wall, needing its support, eyes heavy with pleasure and a slightly stunned satisfaction. 

Positive she would crumple to the ground in a boneless mass, Rheia stayed as she was while Abram rose from his knees. 

Their meal was stone-cold, but he hummed cheerfully as he sat down to scoop up a forkful of eggs.

“Not going to sit down to eat?” He asked, an absolutely wicked smile curving his lips.

Rheia eyed him steadily.    
“I’m going to get you back for that.” She promised, still not daring to move, as she was sure that her legs were no stronger than cooked noodles at the moment.

He said nothing while she gathered her strength to head back to the living room in search of her dress. The blanket-dress had been woefully unprepared for such an assault.    
  
Not that her dress would fare much better, but it was something.

Abram waited until he could hear her fumbling through the living room, looking for her dress. 

“I’ll count on it.” He called out to her, and chuckled as something crashed to the floor. Either her knees gave out, or something had slipped from her fingers. 

Gauging by the cursing he could hear in one...two...three…  _ four _ languages, it was likely the first.

It hadn’t dawned on Rheia yet that a “low profile” meant essentially confined to the rented house until the searchers moved on. 

It had occurred to Abram, though, and he was knowledgeable enough of the world to know that a Tomarbin would be likely to go stir-crazy in less than two days of confinement.

He’d just have to make sure that she stayed… occupied.

Yes, the addiction definitely cut both ways. As she found her defenses against his presence weakening further and further, he found the knife-edge craving for her taste, her touch, sharpening with each bit of ‘excitement.’

He just needed to make sure it didn’t keep him from completing his job.


	6. More Smut

## Snippet 6

#### May or May Not be canon… as such

#### Warning. This is going to get smutty.

* * *

Rheia stabled her wagon and horses at the first caravansary she say coming into Aquarine. In the coastal city, that meant approaching from the North.

She couldn’t be out in the countryside just then. There was something wrong with her, and she didn’t know what it was. 

Her skin felt flushed, but there was no sign of it visually. What she had noticed, ever since the show-down with Morgan the Madman, was that she could hear and see the world through a veil of what she thought of as “God Vision”. She could see the ties or auras of the Six Gods around a person, see what their affinities or allegiances were. At least to the Divine beings.

Who they were tied to on the mortal plane was another thing entirely, and didn’t concern her most of the time.

She wasn’t entirely concerned when her seasonal cycle took almost a year to return. Rheia had attributed it to the amount of trauma she’d suffered that year. Her time in Fellowin’s cells would have been enough to send her system out of sync a half-dozen times over.

It was probably just a re-balancing from all the events, she reasoned. No need for alarm.

Except for the low thrum of need that buzzed through her veins. Rheia was familiar to giving in to the whims of her body, but usually at her inclination. 

This was… stranger. Normally, when she felt a buzz of want for companionship, she would find herself chatting with a stranger in a tavern, or in the marketplace, and go from there.

She had, in fact, invited a strapping farm lad to share her cot only three days hence. Though it was an entertaining evening, it had done nothing to quell the need still buzzing in her veins.

Rheia was seriously considering consulting the closest caravan’s Healer for an answer. 

Running a hand down her arm, Rheia considered against the idea, as she had been doing back and forth for the last week and a half. Ever since her time in the Dread Fields, taking on the ties to the other four Old Gods to add to her intrinsic tie to the Mother Serpent and the Shadow, Rheia had noticed a few changes of that chaotic time that had not gone away.

The most notable change, was to her skin. While most of it remained her familiar pale gold toned skin, there were now swirls and stripes of iridescent smooth scales. Most took it as an elaborate decoration done with adhesives and paint, but that was not the truth. The scars Derrick had given her with his Nightlope venom coated dagger were the most extravagant change. The scars themselves were left as they had been, raised flesh tinged slightly violet with the remnants of the venom. 

But now, instead of the webbing purple lines of poison rippling out from them, each scar seemed to be an epicenter for the iridescent scales. They were lovely to look at, Rheia had to admit. As if her skin had turned to water and the faintest sheen of oil had been painted over it. Only the criss-crossed sections between the scales showed the darker violet as the webbing used to be. 

Iridescence toned with gold, borders made of shadow. A being made equally of the first two forces of the universe. It was exactly the description of her ancestor that had been passed down through the generations. 

Now Rheia was more than just a descendant. She was barely a step away from being a full-blooded Gorgon. As terrifying a thought as _ that _ would be in this day and age.

No one had seen the two remaining Gorgon sisters since the Tomarbin Clans had been established more than 1000 years ago. At least, until she had been visited by the Gorgon Euryale herself only weeks after her trial in the Dread Fields to be given the Mantle of the Wanderer. Rheia’s head still swam when she thought of the experience. At least the Mantle, a most amazing piece of clothing, seemed to mask most of her… changes. So at least she didn’t draw anyone’s eye as she traveled.

Rheia wandered the city aimlessly, letting her thoughts roll through her mind, hoping that the energies of the city would act like a balm to her inner fever.

  
Following a nervous habit, she lightly bit down on her lower lip, then cursed. That was the _ other _ change she hadn’t gotten used to yet. Her canine teeth, which on a Tomarbin were already just slightly longer than a Human’s, had lengthened to proper fangs.

Fangs that kept nicking and cutting her lower lip when she wasn’t careful. Looking back on all the times in her past where she had longed to be able to show a fang of disdain as the Dragons and Nagi could, Rheia thought herself a damn fool. Or at least, naive. 

If she hadn’t been a sorceress of sound by nature, those fangs would have been her undoing as a Bard. It hadn’t occurred to her that having fangs when one did not _ start _ with fang would give one a most dreadful lisp.

Something she could correct through her magic, but she didn’t like relying on it for normal conversation.

  
  


At least her hair didn’t act as if it were a nest of living serpents. That was one headache that she could do without.

Around mid-day, Rheia paused in the center of Aquarine. The tangy scent of sea air giving her a slight distraction from her frustration. What was an even more amusing distraction, was seeing the new statue being raised in the square. 

Aquarine was always a little more fervent in their following of the New Gods, so she shouldn’t have been surprised.

They had already raised statues of the Winter Court; Kiran, the Lord, Metrix, the Priest, Wyella, the Lady, and Cydione, the Thief. Now they were starting on the Autumn Court, and were nearly done with it.

The circle of statues was progressing nicely, and already she saw the bet figure of Pidea, the Hag, Xineas, the Merchant’s proud stance with golden scales in his hand, Nysyn, the Harvester, with his scythe raised to bring in the crops. 

Which brought them to the first of Autumn’s Court: Kyarae, the Mercenary. She studied the face of the statue as the townspeople heaved and pulled on the ropes required to lift it. She supposed that the artist had done an admirable job, the technique was perfection.

But the face was not one that was familiar to her, the cheekbones were sharp, yes, but wrong. The nose didn’t have the slight crook that she knew belonged to the real thing. And she knew that the frankly ridiculous number of knives and pouches strung over the figure’s ‘armor’ was bulky at best, and cumbersome at worst. The hood covering the rest of his head was an interesting addition, which Rheia approved of. 

‘_ I’ll have to tell him about this.’ _She thought in amusement, then worried slightly what the statue of the Wanderer would look like when they finally reached Spring’s Court. 

Not that it mattered too much, as the nature of the Wanderer’s Mantle was to be passed from one to another of the Tomarbins, whomever best fit the role at the time. So even if it did not match her features, which would be more alarming than anything, it was likely to match _ someone _… at some point. Rheia almost pitied the person who might bear that resemblance.

She moved on from the square, and the day passed, trying everything she could think of. Taking an hour long soak in the local bath house had been wonderful, but still left the buzz in her blood feeling like a swarm of hornets needing an escape.

She’d glutted on meat, wine, cheese, fruit. All her favorite foods, and yet the buzz remained.

Even, and most astonishing of all. Three flasks of un-watered grog, and… nothing. 

It was a frustration of mounting frustrations, and she had no idea what to do about it.

At a loss, Rheia rearranged the contents of her wagon. As much as she could, at any rate. The furnishings were bolted down so she wouldn’t get crushed if a storm rocked the wagon on its wheels.

She tried her hand at twisting wire, beads and Fluttersharp wings into new pieces of jewelry, but the buzz was making her fingers shake.

Disgusted and frustrated, Rheia flung herself onto her cot violently enough that the wagon _ did _ shake on its wheels slightly. She stilled long enough to be assured by the low “thud” of the wheels connecting back to the earth.

Apparently she had gained in strength, as well. How lovely. Yet another complication.

Willing herself to sleep, Rheia thought she might have to sleep through the entire season if this kept up. It was already going nine days strong. Was this irritating buzz going to keep up for the entire month? 

Drifting off, the buzz started to pulse in time with her heart beat, a rhythm that soothed as much as it aroused.

It was not the end of Rheia’s firsts, though. As the moon started its journey through the autumn sky, she started to moan and mutter in her sleep.

“_ Help, please.” _ The words were low, as in her dreams she reached for someone, anyone, to help her. The buzz in her veins had now morphed to bees and wasps the size of her hand. Brave men and women came forth, and tried to battle the insects, only to be driven off.

Rheia knelt at the center of the swarm, deafened by the buzzing whirl of their wings, burning from within with a fire she didn’t know how to quench.

Her fingers clawed at the ground beneath her, trying to find anything, a stone or even a pebble that she could use to drive the swarm away.

But her fingers met nothing but dirt. 

“_ Please, please please.” _ She begged, she prayed, for something to quell the storm. 

The faintest whiff of a familiar aura met her senses. A scent that was more than a scent, achingly familiar. It had changed, like she had, during the Dread Fields. Power still calling to power, but now they were each balanced. Whole.

A hooded figure, as laden with sheaths, pouches and blades as the statue in the square, walked up to her. Ignoring the wasps and bees as if they didn’t exist.

“_ You have an offer for me?” _ He asked, pulling back the hood to reveal the correct face. The ash grey eyes set above knife-edge cheekbones, contrasting beautifully against the golden brown skin and ink black hair. 

Rheia looked up, and tried to stand. She fell back, as her legs trembled in time with the swarms furious buzz. 

“_ I need… I need… ” _ She floundered, unable to find the words for what she needed. “ _ Help me!” _ She demanded, not knowing how a dream of Abram could do so.

He studied her with those ocean storm colored eyes, then grinned. “_ I think I can do that.” _

Then he reached down and grabbed her arm, pulling her up so she was on her feet. Legs still too weak to stand, she fell against his chest before he was lifting her up. The strength of his arms still a thrill to her, though she knew her slight stature didn’t make her especially a challenge to lift. 

His lips met hers in a fevered dance that matched the frantic pitch of the buzz in her blood, and the taste was so real, that Rheia opened her eyes.

  
  


The dim moonlight of the wagon shone through the window, showing a shadowed figure leaning over her on her cot. 

The aura that had called to her still swirled through her senses, and her lips curled in a smile. 

“_ I didn’t know I could conjure you from dreams.” _ She said, speaking in her native tongue, now knowing that he could answer. 

“_ You didn’t. You were talking in your sleep.” _

Rheia sat up, propping herself up by one elbow. “_ I wath not.” _ Then winced as she forgot to adjust her speech to avoid the lisp her new fangs gave her.

Abram rose, valiantly holding back a snicker at the lisp, and nudged her over with his hip as he took a spot on the cot with her.  
“ _ Were so.” _ He said, and traced a finger along one of the swirls of scale that now adorned her skin. “ _ So, what did you want my help, or not?” _

She didn’t know if she answered, save for a low hiss of need that had been building at the back of her throat all day. She rolled, pulling Abram underneath her as she moved to straddle him. 

He didn’t wear nearly as many sheaths and blades in reality as the statue depicted him donning. Which she appreciated, since any more and she might have screamed in frustration before vesting him of his various belts, bandolier, cloak, vest, and finally shirt. 

Her newly arranged wagon was cluttered with flung articles of clothing by the time her hands found smooth warm flesh. 

It had not sped matters any that she had been been doing all the undressing more or less blindly, as Abram captured her lips with his, playing a battle that was well practiced as his hands matched her fervor as they stroked and squeezed over curve and plane of her body.

There was a moment where Abram had to buck his hips up to allow the slacks to be freed, and tossed like the rest of his belongings around the wagon. There was a clatter of metal as her teakettle got knocked from the stove top.

“_ That’s a bad habit of yours, Rheia. _” He growled against her neck, tearing at the fabric of her light nightgown as her overwhelming need became contagious, infecting his thoughts with an urgency that rose as sharp as a mountain’s peak.

“_ You can scold me for it later.” _She panted out the words as the buzzing need now focused on every place their skin made contact.

His touch was only stoking the burning need higher, hotter, but maybe that’s what she needed. Like a fever that had to burn itself out.

And she needed someone who could handle the fire along with her.

He was already hard, his length pressing against her as the tattered ruins of her nightgown were tossed to the floor beside the cot. 

Leaning forward, Rheia guided him into her. She’d been driven wild by this need for a week. To say she was ready wouldn’t have covered half the truth.

Finally, the burning need was being fed from within. At a spot that hadn’t been reached before, and Rheia let out a keening moan as the first hint of relief flickered through her. 

It wasn’t enough, though. Not nearly enough. Her hips started to move, rocking, lifting, then slamming back down as she let the need set the pace. Abram’s hands were still on her, stroking, squeezing, holding on to her hips as she rode them both towards oblivion.

When the first crest of climax shuddered through her, Rheia’s keening moan pitched so that she wasn’t sure humans ears could actually hear the tone.

The buzzing need had died down, but was not gone. Even that partial victory was enough to have Rheia curling forward to rest against Abram’s chest for a while.

His hand raised to stroke through her curling mass of hair. 

“Was that all?_ ” _ He asked, switching back to common as was his native tongue, voice lazy and drugged in the afterglow. 

The words revived the buzzing need just a little more, and her lips curled against the slope of his shoulder.  
  
“It was a start _ .” _ She said, honestly. Gaining any relief of the buzzing need felt fabulous. Especially since now she knew what the need was calling for.

It wasn’t done with them yet, though. 

“Good Gods.” He muttered, but didn’t sound at all disappointed by the idea.

Remembering her time in the square, Rheia shifted, uncoupling them to truly let their bodies rest.

“Speaking of Gods.” She commented, curling up at his side where the heat of his body radiated out like a furnace. “They erected a new statue in the square today.”

Abram was already half-dozing and only grunted in response. 

Her grin turned wicked, showing a flash of fang as she continued her casual recollection. 

“The artist did a fair job of its likeness.” She continued, suppressing a laugh as best she could. “Looks just like you.” 

Another grunt. Rheia decided to push her tale just a little farther from the truth.

“Though I did spy a few discrepancies. The Statue appears much better… ‘equipped’.” She said, thinking of the numerous knives and swords the statue was depicted carrying. “Maybe I should have a word to the sculptor. Surely we can’t have people’s hopes being falsely raised before they call on the Mercenar-EEE” She ended the word on a squeal of laughter as Abram suddenly pinched his fingers into her side. 

She _ knew _ that him finding out her ticklish spot was going to bite her in the ass one day.

“You have any complaints about my equipment?” He asked, his voice rumbling out in a half-amused growl.

Rheia wriggled to get away from the tickling pinch, nearly falling off the cot in the process. Abram half-sat up enough to catch her from falling, pulling her closer where he could reach her other side to attack as well.

“Nononononono.” Rheia giggled out, then shrieked as he managed to dig fingers into the ticklish spot on her other side. “I’m just, I’m just saying.” She gasped out, trying to catch his wrists to stop the onslaught.

He didn’t stop, but he did pause, his fingers lightly resting on her sides.  
“Oh?” He asked, ash grey eyes glinting light steel in the moonlight. “What are you saying, Bard?”

Rheia had to take a slow breath so her voice wouldn’t shake with laughter, her eyes now nearly always with a hint of emerald green to add to their normal golden brown as she had to call on a small bit of magic to counter the lisp of her fangs. 

“I’m just saying, that your countenance of the statue seems… over burdened. No one person could possibly handle all that… equipment.”  
  


He narrowed his eyes at her, and tightened his grip ever so slightly. It sent a jolt through her, but not enough to have her screeching with giggles again.

“Is that so?” He asked, “Are you saying I’m not overburdened?”

Rheia’s voice was nearly choked with laughter, as she looked up at him. “Absolutely not. I’d say you are perfectly burdened.”

His hands moved away from her sides to settle at her hips, where her curves matched perfectly with the curl of his hand.

“How would the sculptor know about my equipment to be of any judge?” He asked, a more pensive speculation now.

Rheia couldn’t resist another jab. “Well, it’s right out there for all to see. I think the artist was trying for ‘intimidating’, but missed the mark a little to ‘overcompensating’.”  
  


Abram only had a moment for alarm to cross his face before Rheia was bursting into riotous giggles.

Then he was leaning over her, caging her between his arms as he stared down into her laughing face.

“I think you’re telling tales, Rheia.”  
  


She only gave another giggle in response. “Of course I’m telling tales.” She said, and leaned up from the cot enough to place a playful kiss on his crooked nose. “But never lies.”

They locked gazes long enough that the buzzing urge woke from its temporary slumber, affecting Abram as much as Rheia, as he claimed her mouth with his.

  
  


Five nights and four days later, the buzzing fever finally broke, and Rheia and Abram finally emerged from her wagon, at least for longer than it took for either of them to snatch food or drink. 

As Rheia headed towards the watering stall, her small barrel of wash water had been depleted that morning and needed refilling, she saw at least two members of the staying caravan look her way. Then one hooted with delight and punched the other lightly on the shoulder.  
  
Rheia watched with slightly puzzled amusement as coin changed hands from one to the other.

As the pair were standing next to the watering stall, she approached, trying to keep her curiosity to herself.

Her unvoiced questions were answered moments later, though, when the second of the pair wandered by her on their way to the caravansary gate.  
  
“Another day, and I would have won ten crown.” He muttered to her. 

A flushed heat that, thankfully, had nothing to do with a buzzing need rose up her neck to her cheeks. 

“Maybe next time.” She said, and the man laughed as the two wandered off. 

Rheia glanced back at them, then to her wagon, with a horrified realization.

She had never put up the soundproofing wards. 

If there were a single other point of gossip in all the Caravan, she’d eat nails. Maybe she’d wander up the coast to Seamet next, just to get ahead of the gossip mill. 

After all, she’d heard rumors of an expedition across the ocean to a new land. Such an undertaking would require the blessing of the Wanderer. 

And, perhaps, the Mercenary. If any should think to call him. 


	7. Fluff, No Smut

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Snippet inspired from the ctabb server. The Laugh Prompt.

##  Snippet 7

####  May or May Not be Canon

####  Warning: Absolutely adorable.

* * *

  
  


She did it. She really did it. Rheia didn’t think it was physically possible to get Abram drunk, but there he was. Drinking twice the amount of grog as she was, and now the Mercenary was stretched out on the floor of her wagon, his gold-toned face flushed with drink. 

Rheia wasn’t too far behind him, but she was relishing the victory of not being the only one drunk to stupidity. 

“Y’know what’s dumb?” He asked, staring up at the ceiling of her wagon as if deciphering some forgotten language.

“What?” Rheia asked, leaning over the edge of her cot so she was looking at him upside-down. It was making the blood rush to her head, but she couldn’t bring herself to move just yet.

“Fuckin’ Gods, right? You know how many there are now?”

Rheia paused, then asked her own question. “Sixteen?”

Abram waved a hand agitatedly in refusal, nearly smacking his glass into her face as he was at it. 

“Twenty-fucken-two! Twenty-two Gods. Y’got the Old Gods. Y’got the New Gods. Old Gods are one thing, y’know. But the new ones! Do you know their names?”   
  


He was getting worked up, which Rheia had never seen happen before. He was always so cool and collected about things. Frequently amused, but rarely in an uproar. 

“Yeahhh,” She said, baffled by his agitation, but absolutely here for the ride. “Kinda hard not to.”

“‘Xactly.” He said, and Rheia noted with glee that Abram had a tendency to bite the side of his lip when he slurred his words. “Ex-fucken-actly. Stupid-ass names. Raarae. How many fuckin’ vowels can you stuff into a name? It’s like someone was trying to name a Gods Damned racehorse.”   
  


Rheia snickered at that, and couldn’t help but take the joke further. “Maybe they were. Maybe when they were naming the God, they asked their horse for inspiration. And the horse said ‘Raa-aa-aa-aarae’.” Rheia drew out the word like a neigh. 

She didn’t even need to use magic to do the impression. She  _ was _ a bard, after all.

Abram stared at her for a second, then howled out a laugh that ended on something eerily close to a gasping squeak as he tried to breathe in while laughing. 

Rheia had never heard anything more delightful in her life. 

“What was that?!” She asked, ecstatic. Abram only gasped out between laughs.

“Nothing, nothing. Don’t do that again.”

The shadow was dancing in Rheia’s grin as she repeated what was undoubtedly the stupidest joke she had ever made.    
  
“What? Don’t say ‘Raa-aa-aa-aa-rae’?” She neighed the word out again, and Abram dissolved into the gasping-squeak laughter again. 

Rheia etched the sound into her mind, determined to be able to recall it when sober. She couldn’t  _ wait _ until the morning when she could see if she could get him to laugh as hard without the drink.

Abram had discovered her ticklish sides, now she had discovered his ridiculously charming laugh. 

She’d say that made them even.


	8. Aaaaaaangst

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angst. Just. So much angst. It will hurt so good.

##  Snippet 8

####  May or May not be Canon (yet)

####  Warnings: Angst, and references to past violence

* * *

  
  


Abram lead Rheia through the low hills that bordered the Dread Fields. She had an idea of where to go from the notes and Missives that had been on Fellowin’s desk when she returned to Auberhaven to confront him.

Reading those notes had made her sick. The meticulous details on the ‘tests’, how long they lasted. In her case, how long she had been dead before her heart started to beat, her lungs took air again. Usually it was hours or days longer before she would wake. And every hour of it, Fellowin had checked on his latest little subject. 

Each subject, be they a failure or a key, had been numbered. Rheia had been subject number sixty-three.

It had been a fascinating and stomach-churning contrast. To see the descriptions and gleeful musings of Fellowin’s horrid tests, in such a precise and beautiful script. To Rheia, the beautiful calligraphy of the man’s handwriting made the heinous contents of his scripts all the more disturbing.

A twig snapped under Abram’s boot, jolting Rheia from her musings. The Chaperone was so skillful at traversing through wood and brush, that even with Rheia’s mastery over sound, it was near impossible to hear him. 

“Are you ok?” She asked, the sun had set an hour ago, but there was still light enough to travel by. Abram looked back over the path behind them, his face shadowed, making his face unreadable.

“I’m fine.” He said, and there was a tone in his voice. Or perhaps, a lack of tone. For it had been as flat and cold as a frozen lake.

It concerned her enough that she stepped closer to his side, and brushed a hand over his arm. If something were alarming Abram, the Chaperone, The warrior who had brought down a half-dozen men at Fellowin’s Manor without breaking stride, then things were far from fine.

He shifted, moving his arm just enough so that she wasn’t touching him.

“What--?” She started to ask, but a movement behind her was heard too late. A man stepped up behind her, snapping a cold iron collar around her neck.    
  
“NO!” She screeched, instinctively calling on her magic to make the sound slice the metal away, and she wouldn’t shed a tear if a finger or three was lost in the process. 

The magic wouldn’t come. Or rather, it tried, but like lifting a barrel with a frayed rope, it sunk back almost immediately. 

Hands went to her pockets, thinking to grab one of the knives she had taken to carrying. Her arms were grabbed and wrenched behind her before she could touch more than a finger to the smooth wooden handle.

“Abram!” She screeched, twisting and wrenching away from the man, now joined by two, then three, then five others.

Abram, her hired Chaperone, stood in the stripes of shadow and moonlight cast by a slumbering oak and watched. 

“Abram, our contract!” Rheia pleaded. ‘ _ Why aren’t you stopping this _ ?!’

Then, he did move. She still couldn’t see his face, but she saw his hand move to his belt, and the pouches strung there. A pouch of gold that she had given him only three days earlier was removed, and tossed with a chilling clash of coins at her feet.

“We’re not under contract any more.” He said, and though his voice was still cold and flat as a winter lake, she felt it cut through her heart like a sword of ice.

Rheia tried, again, to call on her magic, to make her screams into airborne knives that would shred any who tried to touch her. To find the iron’s secret vibration to flood with power until it melted.

Again, the magic rose… and fell. The iron hardly even warmed, and her screams, though loud enough to rouse birds and other night-creatures to flight, didn’t even make a breeze in the clearing.

Then Rheia noticed that while  _ she _ was surrounded. None of the guards that had poured into the clearing went to touch or even go near Abram. 

Understanding began to dawn on her as a chain was looped onto the collar at her throat. 

“You know the notes we read in Fellowin’s Study?” She asked Abram, her voice hoarse and raw from screaming in vain. 

He made no move, no sound, but she knew he remembered.    
  
“I didn’t think I could feel anything worse than the acid, or a hot poker through the chest.”

He was still as a statue, and Rheia almost wished she could hear the cold starlight voice in her head that could make that comparison a reality.    
“So, I should thank you.” She said, while one guard, then another began to line up into formation. “Now I know, you don’t need to hold a knife to cut out a heart.”    
  
One of the men was trying to put a gag over her head to silence her, she jerked and twisted away, meaning to say her piece.

“Turns out that some can do it without lifting a finger.”

He didn’t even flinch, the bastard.

It was Rheia’s worst nightmare. 

Her hands were chained behind her, her heart was numbed more than her body as she was passed over to a squad of Guards.    
  
They wore no Lord’s specific colors, belonged to no particular city. 

She watched Abram walk in front of the guards, a free man. One who had saved her life, saved her sanity. Who knew the fears that woke her up screaming in the middle of the night, and knew that one of those fears was playing out at that very moment by his hand.

Her throat was still raw from the screams of rage and betrayal that had nearly deafened them all when he’d pulled away to allow the cold iron to be clamped around her throat.

Her feet were planted in on the sandy ground, but when the hated chains pulled on the collar around her neck, she couldn’t stop herself from being pulled forwards.

Rheia dug in her heels as much as she could. She didn’t know where she was going, and she didn’t care. She wasn’t going there. Not in chains. Not as a prisoner.

Two flanking guards took her arms to drag her forward. 

‘ _ No, no, no, no, no, no!’ _ Rheia thought, her thoughts increasingly frantic with every step. 

The Widowed Lady of Dornwhich stepped forward, a smug smile curving her red-painted lips.

“Well, looks like our flown songbird has finally been run to ground.” She said, and reached forward to tilt Rheia’s chin up to meet her gaze. This close, Rheia could see through the veil enough to note that the woman’s eyes were, similar to Fellowin’s, a pale icy blue. 

The numb pain of betrayal gave way to boiling fury. Her hands were chained, her magic dampened, but an impulse sparked in her mind, and she acted on it.

Before the Lady could read any change in her expression, Rheia jerked her chin down and lunged forward, snapping her teeth forward to clamp down on long, delicately pale fingers. 

The Lady screeched and tried to pull away, but Rheia held fast like a terrier with its prey. She tasted blood in her mouth, and relished the shrieks coming from the lady as her guards grabbed fistfulls of her hair to yank and try to pull her away. 

‘ _ Fools, you think that a mere pain like that will sway me now?’ _ The thought was grim in her mind as she bit down even harder on the digits she trapped between her jaws.

Struggling against the dampening of her magic, Rheia called up enough to have the wind whisper in the ears of all those present in the area.

_ “You forgot, bitch. I’m a Viper first, Songbird second.” _

Guards were beating at her, yanking and pulling at her shoulders, her hair. All while the Lady was screaming for ‘Silver’ to make her let go. 

There was no doubt that he’d know how, and have the strength to force it. Rheia couldn’t see him beyond the crowd of guards that surrounded her and the Lady in their small battle of blood and fury, but she could hear his voice as he replied calmly to the Lady’s shrieks.   
  
“Sorry, but she’s your problem now.”

It was almost enough to take the sting out of the heartbreak of his betrayal.  _ Almost _ . 

Still, it gave her a grim satisfaction as the lady’s blood and her spit dripped from between her teeth to splatter on the ground at their feet. 

Then one of the guards either recalled their training, or got a lucky blow at the back of her head.

As the world swam away into blackness, Rheia could have sworn she could hear the Shadow laughing.


	9. The Smut Returns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Smut. This was just a sprinting prompt that kinda carried me away. >.>

## Snippet 9

#### May or May not be Canon

#### Warnings: Smut

Rheia and Abram as rivals in a competition or contest. Rheia wins.

* * *

Rheia was keeping her team on the road, but the way was getting tougher and tougher with every passing mile. 

Some joker had prayed to the Wanderer to guide their path in the new land to keep them safe. The way that actually worked was that the Wanderer, now Rheia, walked the path before them and marked the dangers she found so that they could be avoided. 

It was tough work, but Rheia wasn’t born a Tomarbin for nothing.

It was getting towards dark, and Rheia wasn’t one to ignore the Native’s warnings when it came to creatures that hunted in the dark. 

Pulling her team off to what would work for a campsite for the night, Rheia raised her wards and climbed down from the driver’s seat to tend to her team. 

Once her horses were taken care of, Rheia decided it was time to take care of herself. 

Hot water on the stove for tea, joining a pot of soup that was brewing up lovely.

Thinking over the new lands, and the potential dangers therein, Rheia pulled out what was undoubtedly her favorite trick.

Taking a silver coin from her purse, she put it on the counter. Drawing the sign of the Mercenary around it, she said the prayer that would summon the New God. 

“I call you Kyarae, with an offer.”

She had been dreadfully bored on the last few days of travel. The sights were lovely and new, but there hadn’t been anything especially interesting other than trees and rocks for two days. 

The alluring sensation that wafted around her like steam heralded the Mercenary’s arrival.

Though her wagons were warded against any entry, the door to her carriage opened. Abram stepped up into the doorframe and paused, leaning against the door-jam as he looked Rheia over.

She was wearing the Mantle of the Wanderer. It was fabled to have been spun from spider’s silk and woven in with Scales shed from Euryale’s own skin.  
  
Rheia didn’t know if that was the truth, but it was a finely woven garment of a beautiful iridescence that defied most descriptions. 

“So, what’s your offer?” Abram asked, ash grey eyes dancing with amusement. It had been more than two years since they had both undergone what might be called an ascension in the Dread Fields. Two years of either or both of them calling on the other when the mood struck. He was a Mercenary, and she a Wanderer. Commitment had a different look between two such rootless individuals.

Rheia glanced over and grinned.  
“How about a contest?”

He raised an eyebrow at that, and stepped inside the carriage, closing the door behind him. 

Instantly that alluring sensation doubled in its power as he stepped closer to her. His breath ghosting over her cheek as he bent down to whisper in her ear.

“What kind of contest?”  
  


Rheia had to resist turning her head to bury her face in his neck. The man was practically a living furnace, and her cold-blooded ancestry never made it easy to turn down a source of warmth.

“I was thinking of a card game.” Rheia said impishly. “I just learned it from a soldier in New Port.” She reached up to tug lightly on the collar of his shirt. “Only on every loss, the loser must remove an article of clothing.”  
  


Abram chuckled, “Confident, aren’t you? Didn’t you say you just learned this game? How do you know that I’m not already well versed in it?”  
  


Rheia grinned. “I’m not sure that I care, I’ll win regardless.” The light of amusement matched in her eyes as she let her gaze skim over his long, fit build. “One way or another.”

Abram raised a hand to cover a grin. “Well, alright then. It’s a bet. Where’s the deck?”

Rheia tilted her head, purposefully feigning that she misheard him.  
“Hmm? I believe you brought that with you. Unless there’s something I should know about.”

Abram’s only response to that was to pull her against him, where she could feel the press of his length against her hip.

“Still think I’m… under-equipped?” 

Rheia smothered her own grin. 

“Never.” She said, and snickered. Easing around him, she gestured towards the stove. 

“Watch the soup, would you? I’ll dig out the cards.”

Abram hummed his agreement and stirred the soup. It would be ready in a few minutes, it really only needed to wait for the noodles to cook.

Rheia shuffled around, the carriage seeming bigger on the inside ever since her ascension. From the outside, it appeared unchanged. The same wagon that she had since first leaving her home caravan. Originally a cramped space with hardly enough room to walk between the shelves and drawers on one side, next to the stove, and the cot on the other. Now there was enough space for two to pass comfortably. Even an extra fold-out table to have meals or other… entertainment. 

Finding the card, Rheia held up the deck triumphantly. “Found it!”

Abram glanced over at her. “You always did have a talent for finding decks.”

Rheia played along with the joke. After all, she had started it. 

“Oh, most are no trouble at all to find.” She said, a laugh caught at the back of her throat.

Walking over to glance around Abram’s shoulder, Rheia eyed the soup, and sniffed the air. 

“Seems about done. Mind dishing us up?”  
  


Abram complied, and Rheia folded down the extra tabletop for them to use for their game as well as the meal.

Bowls and spoons set in front of them, Rheia started to shuffle the cards, before dealing them out. 

Three cards face-down in front of each of them, then eight to their hand.

“I’ll give you the rules quickly. Meet or Beat, keep five cards in your hand for as long as the draw pile exists. Choose three cards to put on the face-down cards. Facing up. These can not be touched until all the cards in your hand are gone. The face-down cards can not be touched until all your face-up cards are gone. Aces high, tens will remove the discard pile from play. Twos are transition cards. They can go onto any card, and thus reset the count so anything can go atop them. First one to get rid of all their cards, wins.”

Rheia glanced up at Abram to see him watching her with that curiously blank expression he so often wore on his jobs.  
  
“With me so far?” She asked, knowing she had spoken too quick for most mortals to keep up with. Lucky for Abram that he wasn’t a mortal.

“I’m with you.” He said, earning himself a beaming smile from his companion. 

Rheia nodded. “Another thing that can remove the discard pile from the game: four of a kind. Doesn’t matter if you play all four or piggy-back on cards I put down. Just so long as four of the same number cards go down right after each other. No breaks.”

He nodded, and set his face-up cards down. A king of wolves, a knight of fish, and a knight of falcons.  
  
Rheia glanced at the cards, then nodded. Placing her own selection of three cards from her original eight onto her face-down cards. King of falcons, queen of wolves, and queen of spiders.

Flipping a card over from the remaining draw pile, she put it face up between them. Seven of fish.

Abram looked over his cards, and chose one. Eight of wolves. 

“What happens if we don’t have a card that meets or beats?” He asked as he drew a card from the pile.

Rheia played her own card. Eight of falcons. 

“Then you take the discard pile and end your turn.” She said, watching what he played next. Knight of wolves.

Card after card, they played. Abram was a quick study, but this was exactly the kind of game that Rheia loved. Skill, with a twist of luck at the end.

By the time they were down to the face-down cards, Rheia was on the edge of her seat.

The first face-down card was on Abram’s card. Choosing the far left, from Rheia’s perspective, he flipped it over and set it on the discard pile. A ten of falcons.  
  
Rheia hissed out a breath of relief, the discard pile was cleared and set off to the side, entirely removed from the game. She picked one of her face-down cards. The center. Six of spiders. 

She let out a little laugh of relief. “Good job you got rid of the pile.” She said, grinning. 

Abram only gave the slightest hint of a smile as he flipped over his next card. The far right, this time. 

Nine of fish. 

Rheia flipped over her right-hand card. Knight of spiders.

Watching Abram go for his last card, Rheia held her breath. Everything was riding on this one card.

He flipped.

Four of wolves. It didn’t meet or beat. Not by a long shot. By rights, the discard pile was his hand now. 

As he picked up the cards, he eyed the last of Rheia’s face-down cards. 

She flipped.

Ace of wolves. 

“Ha-ha!” Rheia crowed in delight.

Abram snorted out a laugh, and reached for the hem of his shirt.

“Ah, I don’t get to choose?” Rheia joked. Abram looked over at her, the heat in his eyes sparking a similar fire in her.

“That wasn’t part of the bet.” He said, and tossed the shirt over by the cot.

Rheia lost herself in skimming her eyes over the taut planes of his chest, the light dusting of hair, the scars that puckered and sliced across his flesh. Memories of battles and wars he’d fought through the years.

Abram picked up all the discarded cards and started shuffling them again, before dealing them out for another game. 

Abram won the next one, costing Rheia her mantle. Then another, claiming her blouse. 

Rheia won the fourth, bringing Abram down to his undergarments and boots. 

‘_ It’s a good look on him.’ _ Rheia thought, biting her lip to keep her own desires in check. They had a contest to finish, after all.

Abram won the fifth game, costing Rheia her skirt. Rheia won the sixth, costing Abram his boots. 

They were both down to the last item of clothing. Rheia, her sandals, and Abram, his loincloth.  
  
The last game would decide the final victor of the contest. 

Eyes on both sides of the table were distracted, roaming over bare flesh that was so familiar, and made all the more tantalizing for its familiarity. Rheia couldn’t help but eye the spot on Abram’s hip that she knew from experience if she sank her teeth lightly into that spot, whatever control he kept himself to would be loosed.

The last game began, and neither did well in their strategy. 

Coming down to the face-down cards once more. Rheia eyed them, then Abram, with hungry anticipation.

Rheia went first. Top card on the discard pile was a four. Not hard to beat. She flipped her far-left card.  
  
Six of wolves. 

Abram next, King of fish. 

  
Rheia’s mouth was dry with excitement. Flipping her far-right card. 

Ace of spiders. 

She breathed out a hiss of relief. Abram flipped his second-to-last card.

Three of fish. 

He let out a groan as he scooped up the discard pile. Rheia whooped and flipped over her last card, knowing that it didn’t matter what it was, but needing to know anyway.  
  
Six of falcons.

Rheia cackled out a laugh. The soup had been finished during the second game, and the bowls were safely off to one side. Rheia flipped the tabletop back up and out of the way, sending cards scattered over the floor. She’d deal with them later. 

Abram looked over at her, the heated expectation in his eyes as he pulled off his final article of clothing, his boots, and tossed them over to the well-grown pile of clothes.

“So, what now?” He asked, though they both knew what was coming next. 

Rheia stood in front of Abram, his legs spread so she could stand between them. His “equipment” already standing at attention. 

Leaning over, Rheia claimed his lips in a kiss. Nudging his hands away from her as they rose to grab hold of her hips. 

“I’m thinking,” She said, murmuring the words against his neck as she slowly knelt before him. “To the victor go the spoils.”

His eyes never left hers, and she though he’d better thank his lucky stars that she had figured out how to retract the fangs that had come with her ascension. 

Otherwise, things might get a little… tricky. 

Running her hands over the firm muscle, admiring the smooth skin of the scars and the lightly furred hair of his legs and chest, she lowered. Lowered, and finally took him into her mouth. 

He was nearly as worked up as she, so it took only moments of her talented tongue and lips to work over him before his fist was in her hair, tugging so that she knew exactly the hold that she had over him. 

There was always something bewitching for her. Watching a man, _ her _ man, at least for the evening, unravel. To slowly lose battle after battle with himself as he gave in to the pleasure she used to assault his system. 

When her jaw began to tire, Rheia switched to her hand, just for a moment as she rose up on her knees to sink her teeth into that one spot on his hips she knew would tear the control from his slippery fingers. 

His hips jerked, and if it weren’t for Rheia’s thumb pressing into a very particular place on his ‘equipment’, he would have come on that very instant. 

The growl that sounded in his chest gave her a thrill, and just a touch of fear. Not that she thought for a second that he’d hurt her. 

Oh, but he could get the sweetest revenge she could stand.

“You’re going to pay for that.” He said, his voice a hoarse rumble. 

Rheia only looked up at him with a wicked smile on her lips. 

“Bill me.” She said, and thought about moving back to her previous entertainment.  
  
But Abram had other plans. He caught her arm and hauled her up as he stood. Pulling her off her feet. 

Rheia only had a moment to squeal as she was tossed onto her cot. The straps and fastenings creaking in protest of the sudden weight. 

They creaked even more ominously as Abram soon joined her. Caging her with one arm braced against the cot as the other hand wandered down until he could tear her undergarments away. 

“I’ll have you screaming before the night’s out.” He said, his ash-grey gaze hot on hers. 

Heat was already pooled low in stomach, and now her insides quivered at the rumbled statement.  
  
“Promise?” She asked, though it sounded distinctly more like a challenge. 

Abram only grinned at her, and his eyes flashed a brilliant silver for just a moment.

It would have baffled her, except that she felt her hands joined at the wrist and bound to the head of her cot. 

Her mind didn’t have time to try to dredge up old horrors, as Abram nudged her legs apart and blew a cool stream of air over her center. Calling attention to how wet and ready she already was. 

Rheia nearly whimpered, but kept her silence. If he was going to have her screaming, he was going to have to earn it.

Slowly, so slowly she could have killed him for it, he lowered his mouth over her. His movements so torturously deliberate, that she tried to grind her hips up to gain more friction.

He only clasped his hands over her hips.

  
“Not yet,” He breathed, and pressed a kiss to her inner thigh. “Not yet, my songbird.”

Fiery kisses trailed up her inner thigh until he was focused back at her center. Now Rheia did whimper as his tongue mirrored her techniques from earlier. Swirling around the bundle of nerves above her center, before delving deep inside to make her squirm and writhe.

The bindings around her wrists creaked as she couldn’t help but to pull at them. She wanted to bury her hands in his hair, to bring his attention firmly to where she needed it most.

The low chuckle that sounded in his chest radiated through her, and lifted her another notch higher towards the crest of pleasure.

He teased and tortured. Bringing her up so close, _ so close _, before drifting away to place kisses and soft bites on her legs, her thighs. Sometimes rising up enough to press a kiss just below her navel. 

Every tease was met with whines of protest, until he finally settled back at her core, slipping a finger, then two, inside her while his tongue and teeth administered to the agonizingly sensitive bud above. 

It was not a crest of pleasure, but an eruption, Rheia didn’t even care to hold back her screams as she rode the hot bouts of flame that rocketed through her system. Legs locked around Abram’s shoulders, mindless with the pleasure as stars sparkled and danced behind her eyes.

Her body was still vibrating when the binds disappeared as suddenly as they had appeared. Abram shifted so that he surrounded her, arms on either side of her head. She had hardly a moment to catch her breath before he was slipping inside her.

Which one of them voiced the low groan at that moment, even Rheia couldn’t be sure. Sparks were flying through her veins, beating with her pulse and rising with each thrust he gave into her. 

Turning her hands so she could grip onto the edge of the cot, Rheia’s strength recovered as the mounting peak of pleasure rose up in her again. Lifting her hips, she met Abram’s thrusts with equal abandon, racing him to the finish. 

He must have known he was close, because just at the last thrust, he bit down on the soft flesh between her neck and shoulder, shooting her over the edge once more. Nails biting into the wooden edge of the cot, legs locked around his stuttering hips as he emptied himself into her. 

As their breathing began to even itself out, Abram had collapsed against her. Rheia ran her fingers through his ink-black hair, revelling in the warmth of his body against hers. As soon as she could feel her toes again, she’d have to wake him up.

After all, _She_ _won._


End file.
